NEW YORK, NEW YORK – An elderly New York school bus driver was savagely beaten for accidentally knocking off a side-view mirror on a double-parked car, cops said.

Grandfather Juan Delvalle, 65, was driving two city middle-school students home in a standard-sized yellow bus on narrow Anthony Avenue near Echo Place at around 11:40am local time Monday, when he clipped the illegally parked 2010 Chrysler Sebring, ripping off its mirror, officials and witnesses said.

Local thug Joey Scott, 30, who was leasing the Sebring, heard the commotion from his nearby Tremont apartment building and ran out in a rage to confront Delvalle, sources said.

“The owner of the car came out and saw what happened [and] told the bus driver, ‘Are you going to leave after hitting my car?” said a deli worker who witnessed the confrontation. “The bus driver wanted to call the police, but instead, the owner of the car punched him twice.”

Delvalle fell backward, and his head struck the pavement and began bleeding profusely, authorities said.

He was rushed to St. Barnabas Hospital with severe head trauma. Originally listed in critical condition, he was later upgraded to stable.

Meanwhile, Scott, who has a long rap sheet, fled like a coward, officials said.

Devalle “gets up at 3:30am every day for work,” said his shattered brother, who lives with him. “He was talking about planning to retire.”

Atlantic Express bus company co-worker Carolyn Daly said, “It’s completely unbelievable. [Delvalle’s] a very gentle man who has worked for us for a long time.”

Betty Lauriano, a co-worker of Delvalle’s, said, “Everyone loves him, he’s a nice guy. We’re in this situation almost every single day, bad neighborhoods, and people become violent.”

The two IS 313 students on the bus were not hurt, and their parents were quickly notified.

Before cops arrived, Scott’s girlfriend, Teona White, 28, had hopped into the Chrysler and sped off, the sources said.

But cops tracked down the leased car, and White was taken into custody after a two-hour standoff in an apartment building.

ARIZONA – Taxpayers in Arizona spend $125 million each school year funding more than 13,000 students who don’t exist at public schools.

That’s because the state school system uses an antique budget approach that causes taxpayers to overpay, says a new report, “Ghost Busters: How to Save $125 Million a Year in Arizona’s Education Budget,” by Goldwater Institute education director Jonathan Butcher.

The system pays for some students twice, Butcher says.

Here’s how it happens.

Arizona schools are funded based on the number of students who attend each school in the prior school year, Butcher’s report says. However, when a student transfers out of one school and into another, the school getting the new student can apply for funding for that student in the middle of the year, he says.

But the schools don’t talk to each other, nor share funds, nor computer systems, it seems. So that results in the two schools double filing for — and getting double the taxpayer money for — the same student. This budget snafu costs taxpayers $125 million each school year, according to Butcher’s estimates.

Arizona taxpayers “are literally throwing $125 million school funding dollars into a black hole,” says Butcher in a statement. “More money would be available for all schools if we weren’t paying for ‘ghosts.’”

The phantom students are doubly painful, because “two years ago, Arizona voters passed a temporary sales tax increase to protect schools from budget cuts during the recession,” his report notes.

Taxpayers would not have been hit with higher sales taxes if the state officials would do their jobs and get on the stick.

“Do we really need to raise taxes on families when we are paying for thousands of empty desks?” asks Butcher. “We should re-direct the money that is double-paying and fill whatever gap schools may have.”

But Arizona taxpayers may get a crack at this issue again in the coming November ballots, since this tax is scheduled to expire in 2013, he notes.

Butcher also says there’s an easy fix to the problem.

Instead of being lazy and funding schools based on the prior year’s enrollment figures, Butcher suggests that “school funding should be based on current enrollment, he says, given that Arizona’s 524 charter schools are already funded this way.

“We already have a model for how this funding structure would work. We do it like this for charter schools,” Butcher says in his statement. “They are funded on current student counts and adjust according to the increases and decreases in their student populations. All we’re asking is that all schools be funded like charter schools.”

ABINGDON, VIRGINIA – A Kingsport man who teaches at a vocational school in Abingdon, Va., has been arrested after allegedly pulling a blank firing gun on his students, pointing it their direction and firing multiple times.

The incident occurred April 4 at William H. Neff Center. Manuael Ernest Dillow, 60, of 840 Liberty Drive, Kingsport, was arrested Wednesday for the alleged incident and charged with 12 felony counts of brandishing a firearm on school property.

The Washington County Sheriffs Office reports the charges are class 6 felonies, with each count punishable up to five years incarceration and a $2,500 fine.

Washington County Sheriff Fred Newman reports School Superintendent Jim Sullivan notified the Sheriff’s Office of the incident. An investigation reportedly discovered Dillow “gathered” the attention of the 12 students in his welding class and lined them up near a garage door in the shop.

“He then pulled a ‘blank firing handgun,’ black in color, from the back waistband of his pants and discharged the weapon between four and ten shots in the direction of the line of the students,” states a Wednesday afternoon press release. “The ‘report’ of the firearm was similar to that of a firearm that fires a projectile, thus placing the students in fear, according to statements. No students were physically injured as a result of the incident.”

Dillow was released on a $20,000 unsecured bond with a hearing date scheduled for May 7.

SAN CLEMENTE, CALIFORNIA – A veteran Orange County sheriff’s deputy feared for the safety of two young girls sitting in a parked car when he shot and killed a Marine sergeant in a dark parking lot near San Clemente High School, authorities said Friday.

Sgt. Manuel Loggins Jr. was shot early Tuesday as he started to get into the SUV where his two daughters — 9 and 14 — were sitting, authorities said. Jim Amormino, a spokesman for the department, said the deputy was fearful that Loggins — who he said appeared to be acting irrationally — was about to drive off with the girls.

“The deputy formed an opinion that he had a deep concern for the children, that he would not allow Mr. Loggins to drive away with the kids,” Amormino said. A former commanding officer said Loggins routinely went to the school with his daughters during the early-morning hours to walk the track and read the Bible.

HERCULES, CALIFORNIA – An East Bay dad claims a game of tag on the playground resulted in his 6-year-old son being accused of sexual assault – a decision he said was an overreaction by school officials.

The parent, who asked only to be identified as Oswin, said his son was accused of brushing his best friend’s leg or groin while the two were playing on the playground at Lupine Hills Elementary in Hercules two months ago.

Oswin said his child was kept in the principal’s office for two hours until he confessed. He was suspended, and a sexual battery charge was placed on his permanent school record.

Legally, there’s no such thing as sexual assault for a six year-old in California.

It wasn’t until Oswin and his wife got a lawyer that the school backed off. District officials declined to discuss specifics. They did confirm that an investigation was conducted, and that the child could not be charged with sexual battery. The claim was removed from the boy’s record.

Oswin’s son is attending another school now. He said he only hopes no one else will have to go through what his family did.

STOCKTON, CALIFORNIA – Earlier this year, a Stockton student was handcuffed with zip ties on his hands and feet, forced to go to the hospital for a psychiatric evaluation and was charged with battery on a police officer. That student was 5 years old.

Michael Davis is diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder or ADHD. His mother says it has led to fights at school. But when the school district said it had a plan to change Michael’s behavior, his mother says things went wrong.

“Michael is energetic,” Thelma Gray said. “He is one big ball of energy.”

Gray calls Michael a comedian. She says his biggest problem is his ADHD stops him from thinking before he acts or speaks.

“He’s very loving,” Gray said. “He’s a good kid and he’s not the discipline problem that he was made out to be.”

Those discipline problems include fights with other students, even throwing a chair.

Gray says the school, Rio Calaveras Elementary of Stockton, wanted to change that behavior by having Michael meet with a school police officer.

“He could come out and talk to Michael and the kids are normally scared straight,” said Gray, describing how she says the school district proposed the meeting.

But the meeting didn’t go as planned.

Gray says Michael was agitated when the officer entered the room, and the whole meeting ended with Michael arrested and cuffed, with zip ties on his hands and his feet.

“I was led to believe that Michael saw a police officer and attacked a police officer on sight,” said Gray, adding that that’s not what happened.

She knows because she ultimately obtained a copy of the police report.

In it, the officer, Lt. Frank Gordo, says he placed his hand on Michael’s and, “the boy pushed my hand away in a batting motion, pushed papers off the table, and kicked me in the right knee.”

When Michael wouldn’t calm down, Gordo cuffed Michael’s hands and feet with zip ties and took the boy to the Stockton Kaiser Psychiatric Hospital in the back of a squad car.

He had not called Michael’s mother or father at that point.

Michael was cited for battery on a police officer.

“I didn’t know until two or three weeks later that my son was zip tied,” Gray said.

Her ex-husband had picked Michael up from the hospital. When he arrived, Michael’s wrists were still zip tied behind his back.

KCRA 3 asked Rio Calaveras Elementary, the Stockton Unified School District and the Stockton Unified School District Police on multiple occasions to comment on what happened during Michael’s meeting with the officer.

Both the police chief and the school district said they could not comment.

The district said it could not comment because of privacy laws regarding students and because the San Joaquin County Grand Jury and the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights were investigating.

“I have been around young children that when they can’t express themselves and don’t feel they’re being heard. They really need to make a loud statement in some way and it’s often a very physical statement.”– UC Davis Professor of Education Shannon Cannon

Also, neither the district nor the Stockton School Police would comment on what procedures were in place to handle children with behavioral problems.

“Some of that’s really abstract,” said UC Davis Professor of Education Shannon Cannon, speaking on how young children react. “We need to try to make it a little bit more concrete,” she said, adding that young children are often more physical than vocal.

When KCRA 3 interviewed Cannon, her students were learning about dealing with problem behavior in the classroom. Cannon says she has seen children as young as 7 years old act out physically and they can get violent, even dangerous to others around them — but adds that it is important to have a behavioral plan in place as soon as the child is diagnosed.

She says children as young as 5 years old may not be able to tell an adult what is bothering them.

“I have been around young children that, when they can’t express themselves, and don’t feel they’re being heard,” says Cannon, adding that “they really need to make a loud statement in some way and it’s often a very physical statement.”

KCRA 3 obtained a copy of the U.S. Department of Education’s report on Michael’s arrest.

The report states that the Stockton Unified School District “delayed an evaluation of the student {Michael} which denied the student a fair and public education.”

They added that the school didn’t offer behavioral services to Michael or his mother, because “it would cost the district money.”

The report goes on to say that, whether or not funds are available through state or federal grants, the school district had an obligation to have Michael evaluated, which it failed to do.

As for Michael’s mother, Gray said she doesn’t want an apology from the district, she simply wants the school district to help her get Michael the education he’s entitled.

“I’ve been asking,” Gray said. “I’ve been begging for any assistance for Michael to get placed appropriately and this is what they chose to do.”

A juvenile court judge eventually dismissed the battery charges against Michael.